Fuel shortages in the heart of Africa - biofuels to the rescue?
Kisangani, a large city in the heart of Africa, is facing fuel shortages that have brought the town's economy to a standstill. Without fuel, no food reaches the city, no food can be exported to the capital, no trade takes place, people become immobile and social services break down.
The city, located where the Lualaba River becomes the mighty Congo River north of the Boyoma Falls (see map, click to enlarge), is home to around half a million people, whose only connection to the outside world is the waterway. Kisangani, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, is the farthest navigable point upstream from the capital city Kinshasa. Fuels are transported to the city in barges that take several weeks and 1800 kilometres to arrive at their point of destination. The other way around, Kisangani is a vital supplier of food for Kinshasa, Africa's second largest city, with around 8 million inhabitants.
The mythical central-African city, formerly known as Stanleyville and described by Nobel laureate V. S. Naipaul in his A Bend in the River, has always been highly sensitive to the political situation in the capital. Earlier this month, clashes in Kinshasa between the troops of recently elected President Joseph Kabila and his rival Jean-Pierre Bemba sent fuel prices in Kisangani skyrocketing. The city's inhabitants, impoverished by a decade of civil war, now pay 900 francs congolais per liter of gasoline, instead of the already high 600 francs before the troubles (US$6/gallon instead of US$4/gallon). When it is available, that is. The Agence Congolaise de Presse (ACP) reports that the city's people - most of who earn less than a dollar a day - have been cueing for fuel in long lines, for days.
As the ACP reports, the inhabitants perceive the price increases as 'the ultimate way to suffocate us'. Fuel is a basic commodity, fundamental to all aspects of modern live, to which the Congolese aspire in their own way. Fuel expenditures take a big bite out of the very small budget of the city's people, but, even here, in the heart of Africa, the price elasticity of fuel demand is extremely low - that is, even if prices are high, people need it and consider it to be an essential good.
Now if there is one place on the planet where the development of a local biofuels industry makes absolute sense, it is Kisangani. Importing fossil fuels via the Congo river a thousand miles upstream is very costly, whereas the region has some of the most suitable land to grow energy crops like palm oil, sugarcane or cassava that can be turned into liquid fuels efficiently. Local biofuels would be considerably less costly than imported fossil fuels. Biodiesel - or even pure palm oil [*French/thesis on using it in ICE's in the tropics] - could be used in the barges that export agricultural products to Kinshasa, whereas ethanol could replace the costly imports of gasoline. A local, independent and decentralised biofuels industry would have immediate and highly positive impacts on both the food and energy security of people in Kisangani and Kinshasa [entry ends here].
bioenergy :: biofuels :: energy :: sustainability :: ethanol :: biodiesel :: energy security :: food security :: decentralisation :: Kisangani :: Democratic Republic of Congo ::
Article continues
The city, located where the Lualaba River becomes the mighty Congo River north of the Boyoma Falls (see map, click to enlarge), is home to around half a million people, whose only connection to the outside world is the waterway. Kisangani, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, is the farthest navigable point upstream from the capital city Kinshasa. Fuels are transported to the city in barges that take several weeks and 1800 kilometres to arrive at their point of destination. The other way around, Kisangani is a vital supplier of food for Kinshasa, Africa's second largest city, with around 8 million inhabitants.
The mythical central-African city, formerly known as Stanleyville and described by Nobel laureate V. S. Naipaul in his A Bend in the River, has always been highly sensitive to the political situation in the capital. Earlier this month, clashes in Kinshasa between the troops of recently elected President Joseph Kabila and his rival Jean-Pierre Bemba sent fuel prices in Kisangani skyrocketing. The city's inhabitants, impoverished by a decade of civil war, now pay 900 francs congolais per liter of gasoline, instead of the already high 600 francs before the troubles (US$6/gallon instead of US$4/gallon). When it is available, that is. The Agence Congolaise de Presse (ACP) reports that the city's people - most of who earn less than a dollar a day - have been cueing for fuel in long lines, for days.
As the ACP reports, the inhabitants perceive the price increases as 'the ultimate way to suffocate us'. Fuel is a basic commodity, fundamental to all aspects of modern live, to which the Congolese aspire in their own way. Fuel expenditures take a big bite out of the very small budget of the city's people, but, even here, in the heart of Africa, the price elasticity of fuel demand is extremely low - that is, even if prices are high, people need it and consider it to be an essential good.
Now if there is one place on the planet where the development of a local biofuels industry makes absolute sense, it is Kisangani. Importing fossil fuels via the Congo river a thousand miles upstream is very costly, whereas the region has some of the most suitable land to grow energy crops like palm oil, sugarcane or cassava that can be turned into liquid fuels efficiently. Local biofuels would be considerably less costly than imported fossil fuels. Biodiesel - or even pure palm oil [*French/thesis on using it in ICE's in the tropics] - could be used in the barges that export agricultural products to Kinshasa, whereas ethanol could replace the costly imports of gasoline. A local, independent and decentralised biofuels industry would have immediate and highly positive impacts on both the food and energy security of people in Kisangani and Kinshasa [entry ends here].
bioenergy :: biofuels :: energy :: sustainability :: ethanol :: biodiesel :: energy security :: food security :: decentralisation :: Kisangani :: Democratic Republic of Congo ::
Article continues
Monday, April 16, 2007
Nitrogen fertilizer makes up 48% of rapeseed energy balance
Rapeseed oil is increasingly used as a pure plant oil (PPO) in diesel engines, as well as in commercial biodiesel production ('rapeseed methyl-ester', RME), especially in Europe. The study looked at the 'seed to oil' energy balance of different oil crops (sunflower, soy, rapeseed, linseed), and found that rapeseed energy balance is dominated by the input of nitrogen-based fertilizer. Not less than 48% of all the energy inputs used to cultivate the crop can be tracked back to nitrogen, one of the three basic plant nutrients.
Nitrogen-based fertilizers are commonly synthesized using the Haber-Bosch process, which produces ammonia by reacting natural gas-derived hydrogen and nitrogen. This ammonia is applied directly to the soil or used to produce other compounds, notably ammonium nitrate and urea, both dry, concentrated products that may be used as fertilizer materials or mixed with water to form a concentrated liquid nitrogen fertilizer. About 80% or more of the 110 million tonnes of ammonia produced annually is used for fertilizing agricultural crops. The cost of natural gas makes up about 90% of the cost of producing ammonia.
André Pouzet, chief of the CETIOM, puts the study in the context of biodiesel production. Given rapeseed's energy balance, and the fact that these energy costs make up 45% of the total energy inputs involved in biodiesel production, the share of nitrogen's energy inputs amounts to roughly 25% of the total energy inputs of the finished biofuel. This high proportion must prompt rapeseed producers to try to reduce nitrogen fertilizer inputs and ultimately to strengthen the energy balance of biodiesel.
However, there is a great regional and interannual variability in the amount of nitrogen fertilizer applications and their effects on rapeseed production, with some producers achieving much better results than others. Since 1999, the dosages used have steadily declined because of new fertilization technologies that make applications more targeted and efficient. On average, these technologies have resulted in a reduction, between 1999 and 2005, of 181 to 167 units for the spring season:
bioenergy :: biofuels :: energy :: sustainability :: rapeseed :: canola :: biodiesel :: energy balance :: fertilizer :: nitrogen ::
"The importance of these technologies that allow for a finetuned fertilisation strategy is to reduce both over-fertilisation and under-fertilisation. We think it is possible to reduce total use of nitrogen by around 10 to 15 units", explains Pouzet.
Three main research areas have now been identified to make nitrogen fertilisation more efficient still.
First of all, fertilizer producers are and should be investing in reducing the energy costs of their production process. Secondly, more intense agronomic research and timing strategies must become more widespread amongst rapeseed farmers. A study by Agrricultural Chamber of the Eure-et-Loire region has shown that yield increases can be obtained by a better match of rapeseed varieties and fertiliser strategies, that result in a decrease of nitrogen needs. Third, Pouzet adds that fundamental research drawing on experiments with Arabidopsis (the 'fruit fly' for plant breeding research), has shown that new breeding techniques can result in non-genetically modified plants with lower nitrogen requirements.
The CETIOM chief streses that the energy balance of biodiesel made from rapeseed is positive, but that it can be strengthened by a range of efforts that spans all players in the field: agronomists, fertiliser producers, rapeseed growers and biodiesel producers.
Article continues
posted by Biopact team at 6:50 PM 0 comments links to this post